


A Lot of Little Lies for the Sake of One Big Truth

by hauntedd



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Post-Season/Series 02 Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-26
Updated: 2014-07-26
Packaged: 2018-02-10 11:13:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2023017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hauntedd/pseuds/hauntedd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’s not sorry, not <i>really</i>, and while it makes her feel dirty and sick inside to know that she’s given Helena another cage to live in, it was for her <b>family</b> and she’d do it all over again if it came down to it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Lot of Little Lies for the Sake of One Big Truth

There’s a moment when she considers not telling Sarah any of it. Actually, there are several moments where Siobhan thinks it might just be easier to continue to keep her out of this mess. She’d just gotten her back—gotten Kira back—and while she knows that Sarah doesn’t trust her, she still loves her.

This could be the end of that.

But Sarah keeps searching, barreling through more walls and upturning even more ground that was best kept in place—always wild, that one. It’s only a matter of time before she trips on a live wire and everything explodes around her—a million little pieces with no way to predict what else gets taken down by the shrapnel left in her wake.

So, in the end, she knows there’s only one thing left to do. And so the truth comes out of her, messy and disjointed, but **real** in a way that her other sins are not.

Perhaps its old age or perhaps it’s that for once Siobhan is deciding between a million shades of grey when she’s used to painting her truths in blacks and whites.

It takes Sarah a minute to process all that she’s been told, and yet it seems like both an eternity and a second has passed before Sarah’s face moves from confusion to rage.

“You—you what? I can’t believe you Siobhan. You gave Helena to the bloody military!”

“I did what I had to!”

“Right. Yeah. What you **had** to do,” Sarah gets off the couch and circles the room, unable to stay in place a second longer, and Siobhan can see the wheels turning as a million thoughts are running through the younger girl’s head. “Sell my sister off to Marian bloody Bowles.”

“Is this what Cal was goin’ on about? Meeting Paul. Your big rescue plans, yeah? Was he—“

“Cal had nothing to do with it, love.” 

He didn’t—not really. He was a vehicle to put the plan in motion, but the arrangement between Top Side, the military, and Siobhan is a demon meant to haunt her and Paul alone. For what little good that does her.

“Excuse me if I don’t believe a word coming out your mouth, S.”

“He arranged the meeting, but not the terms.”

“Kept him in the dark, did ya? Right, because Cal wouldn’t let them get another one of us. He wouldn’t have traded my **sister** for me,” Sarah spits, eyes wide and angry, every fiber of her being tightening up and ready to attack if needed.

Cal would have done the same, she knows. He may not have liked it, may have delayed until he knew for sure it was the only option, instead of the quickest one, but it would have been the same.

Siobhan also knows to keep that truth to herself. Better Sarah keep her white lies when she can.

“I will always put Kira first. No matter the cost.”

“You keep my daughter out—“

“Kira needs her mother; she needs **you** Sarah.” 

“Says the woman who kidnapped her—“

Siobhan chooses to ignore the bait and it only makes Sarah angrier. The brunette’s grown quiet, which she knows, from experience is what Sarah does when she’s truly angry and not simply pissed off. 

Screaming and shouting she can handle—silence, however, chills the older woman to the core. And while she knew, _accepted_ , that Sarah would never forgive her this—the reality is far more terrifying.

“Dyad was never going to let you go, chicken, never let Kira go—so we had—I had to make a decision.”

“Helena’s life for mine. Great. Yeah. So you gonna explain to Kira why **Auntie** Helena isn’t around or am I?”

 _Auntie Helena._ When the bloody hell had Kira started calling her that? And she realizes, with sudden clarity, she’s going to lose Kira over this too.

“Sarah—“

It’s all she can manage to get out before Sarah shoots up onto her feet again.

“You have no idea do you? I have to find her, I have to—“

“Helena can take care of herself.” 

It’s a weak argument at best, but it’s the only one Siobhan has available. She needs to stop this **now**. While she had promised Paul, promised the **military** , nothing beyond Helena’s location; they need to play this carefully to protect the rest of Sarah’s sisters.

Paul knows too much about Sarah, Project Leda, and the rest of the clones to simply barge in and rescue Helena a week after the exchange—and while he has some affection for Sarah, it won’t matter in the end. Paul is in it for himself, first, and everyone else second—and you can’t change a person’s nature.

“No. No, she **can’t**. You don’t know what it’s like, bein’ trapped in a cage. You and Paul, you don’t know shite—where is she, S?”

“I don’t know,” she her hands in her hair as Sarah glares at her, the disbelief plain on her face. With more force, she repeats her words, trying to stress that they’re true, “I don’t know.”

Sarah doesn’t believe her, not that she’d expected her to, despite the truth of it—too many secrets had made that impossible.

“You and Paul bloody well had to have taken her somewhere. You don’t get to act stupid about the details.”

“She was taken to a military base, yes, but then she boarded a plane—“

“Jesus Christ—a plane? To where?”

“I don’t know, love.”

Siobhan **doesn’t** know. Paul had taken her to the base as a _courtesy_ when really they both knew it was for collateral. But beyond watching Helena board the plane from the shadows, Paul had kept her fully in the dark about where they were going. They’d rode back in silence, sins hanging between them as the reality that they'd traded a life for a life settled in, dirtying them both.

“So, what, then? She’s just—gone?”

A second passes as the realization sinks in, Sarah’s angry façade falls and is replaced, just for a moment, with despair, before it’s back again and directed wholly toward her.

“I can’t **believe** you, S! She’s a bloody part of me, of my life, my sister and and—“

“I—“ Siobhan’s tongue goes heavy in her mouth as the words stick in her throat.

She’s not sorry, not _really_ , and while it makes her feel dirty and sick inside to know that she’s given Helena another cage to live in, it was for her **family** and she’d do it all over again.

“We didn’t need this fucking deal of yours. Cos got us out—“

“For how long, Sarah? Hmm? A week? Maybe two—if you don’t think Rachel—“

“I can handle Rachel.” 

Siobhan fixes her with a look, eyebrows raised and her skepticism painted plainly on her features. Sarah can’t handle Rachel or DYAD, at least not forever—they simply don’t have the resources—and Rachel is more dangerous than ever, as she has nothing left to lose.

“I have been handling Rachel,” Sarah insists, and all she can see is the stubborn teenager with anger issues staring back, not the woman she’s become. 

She opens her mouth to protest the statement and closes it. Too many arguments about curfew and skipping town have taught her that arguing with Sarah now will only make her more insistent. Instead, she tries a different approach.

“And what about Kira? She’d have to live like you did—always on the run, one eye always looking over her shoulder. That’s not a way for a child to live!”

“Yeah, well, at least her mum’s got a lifetime of experience doin’ that. Isn’t that right, S?”

“I made a lot of mistakes with you and your brother, Sarah. I can admit that. But I kept you safe. Just like I am keeping Kira _and you_ safe.”

“How? How is this keepin’ any of us safe?”

“This gives you, and Kira, and all of us, a life away from DYAD—“

“Right. What’s next? We’ll have Rachel and Dr. Nealon over for a cuppa, yeah?” 

“No—“

“They tried to take my bloody ovary two days ago and you’re over here falling for Marion Bowles’ bullshit and sellin’ my sister up the river.”

“Of course not,” she snaps, irritated that Sarah gives her so little credit. She’s thought this through, weighed the pros and cons, and built in contingencies. “But this isn’t my first go at this, love. They go after us—after _Kira_ —we burn Top Side to the ground.”

“A poison pill, yeah? Make it too bloody costly for them to take another body part.”

“Something like that,” she agrees, a wry look on her face. 

“Shite,” Sarah breathes as she mulls it over, still angry, but trying to take it all in. “Well you’ve thought of everything, then, haven’t you? And what—I’m just supposed to let Helena rot? Play house with Cal and listen to Marion Bowles go on about Castor and Leda—“

“Sarah,” Siobhan mouths, reaching out a hand to comfort her which Sarah slaps away before clawing at her eyebrows in an attempt to mask the tears that threaten to fall.

“Don’t touch me,” she snaps, stepping away from her and toward the door. “I’m not bloody Alison, S!”

She swallows the words that she wants to scream at the top of her lungs before they can escape. She _knows_ they’re different people, all of them, knows it better than most, actually, but it doesn’t matter right now.

Instead she watches as Sarah makes her way to the door, gripping the handle and Siobhan knows what she needs to say instead.

“I don’t expect you to forgive me, Sarah, but I don’t regret what I’ve done.”

Sarah just glares at her and slams the door behind her leaving Siobhan alone with her thoughts.

And although it hurts more than she’d care to admit, even now that Sarah knows the messy truth of the matter; Siobhan doesn’t regret it, not truly. Sarah may hate her, and Kira may grow to feel the same, in time, but at least they are alive and free to do just that—which is more than she could say if she _hadn’t_ acted when the opportunity presented itself.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so OB has taken over my brain and this kind of just came to me when I was in the process of working on another fic and of course it wanted to be told from Mrs. S' pov even though Sarah comes easier to me, so yeah...


End file.
